For many years, cellular telephones were designed primarily to provide wireless voice communications. With new advances in technology, however, additional functionality has been added to cellular telephones, which are sometimes referred to as personal wireless devices. For example, personal wireless devices including the functionality of a cellular phone, personal digital assistant, email client, media player, and a digital camera are now common. Due to the increased capabilities of these devices, many subscribers are using the devices to store or access sensitive information (e.g., financial account information) or to access private networks (e.g., corporate networks).
With respect to financial transactions, security and fraud prevention innovations are vital to market expansion and user acceptance of new forms of wireless transactions. For example, credit card transactions, whether conducted in person or over the Internet, are susceptible to fraud and theft by increasingly sophisticated thieves. Such attacks range from stealing credit card receipts or copying card numbers to attacking web accessible databases in order to acquire massive amounts of credit card account numbers. Fraud from these types of attacks results in billions of dollars in losses each year, both from these initial thefts of funds, as well as the resulting identity theft.
In addition to working toward fraud prevention, credit card companies are continuously seeking novel methods of expanding their customer sets. Many growth activities center on recruiting young people with a perceived need to establish credit, such as those entering the market for the first time, college students with grant money to spend, and people trying to repair bad credit.
There is a need for systems and methods to support secure wireless financial transactions between individuals wherein individuals may safely use their wireless devices in combination with their financial accounts to purchase items from each other, without the need for stationary credit card terminals.